Chapter 39

Thinking he'd spotted Claire and actually confronting her were two vastly different things. For one, Derek had been mistakenly seeing her for years now, ever since she ran away from home. As a side note, grabbing a woman by the arm and exclaiming, "Claire, where you been?" didn't go over well with strangers. Luckily, his dad knew the arresting officer, and he'd gotten off with a warning.

But he wasn't hallucinating this time. It really was Claire, in the flesh. She remained just as cute, just as enticing, and just as dumb as before.

Rather than do the nice thing and respond with a "Hey, how you doing?" in a suave voice, he barked, "What the fuck were you thinking, Claire Mahoney? Going into an alley with three drunken asshats? Do you know what might have happened if I'd not come along?"

"Goodness, have you been hitting the juice since I left? Because someone has rage issues," was her sassy reply.